MediaCom wins Met recruitment

MediaCom has retained the media account for the Metropolitan Police

and won the recruitment account from the incumbent, TMP Worldwide.

The reappointment followed a pitch called as a part of a statutory

review in June. Agencies were invited to pitch for either the publicity

or recruitment accounts or both. OMD UK and Manning Gottlieb Media were

also shortlisted.

Jackie Harris, the Met Police spokesperson, said MediaCom will take over

the combined account on 7 December. Plans are underway for a campaign to

promote safety on the streets, which will run in January and February

2002.

Harris added: "MediaCom has achieved high standards of performance over

a number of years and we felt it made good business sense to put both

parts of the media under one umbrella."

The recruitment brief involves placing job ads for civilian staff,

special constables and traffic wardens.

As the incumbent on the publicity account, MediaCom recently planned and

bought media for The Met's biggest anti-racism marketing campaign, which

used teen idols to encourage racial tolerance among schoolchildren.

TMP Worldwide has retained creative services for the recruitment account

following a review. Creative for the publicity account was not part of

the review and stays with The Advertising Syndicate, according to

Harris.

The most famous Met campaign, including the image of a uniformed

policeman chasing a plain-clothes black officer, was through Collett

Dickenson Pearce in the 80s.

The next statutory review for the Met media business is to take place in

three years' time.